No vacancies in Tsumago

We are planning on hiking from Magome to Tsumago on April 8. I wanted to sleep in Tsumago after the hike but I cannot find any vacancies in town for that night. The only thing I did find was the Tokonamiso Ryokan, which is 9 km out of town. What would the best option be now that everything is already booked? Should we just hike to Tsumago and then get the bus out of there and stay in Nagiso or somewhere? I really liked the idea of staying on the Nakasendo in an old style place.

Have you thought about staying at Magome instead? Also, why don't you contact the Fujioto Directly. They are a fantastic ryokan that I've stayed at which speaks English...

http://www.tsumago-fujioto.jp/tomarie.html

Yes the Fujioto is also fully booked. There doesn't seem to be many options in Magome. The ones I did find are also booked. I'm thinking we might just catch the bus back to Nakatagawa after the hike and stay there.

Have you seen 妻籠観光協会 (Tsumago sightseeing association)?

http://www.tumago.jp/stay/infomation.html

Basically most of accommodations in Tsumago are family-run inns and they don't registrar on the major booking sites. They accept reservation through telephone and I am afraid most of them don't speak foreign languages.

You can see the list of inns here

http://www.tumago.jp/stay/index.html

and as I checked, Tsutamuraya seems to have rooms for 8th April.

I think you might better e-mail to the association to ask for a night's reservation.

The Japanguide site prohibit to include the e-mail address so please find it by yourself. If you write am e-mail, you might better write it very simple and use the Japanese title like "4月8日の宿泊依頼" meaning "Asking for booking on 8th April".

If you're headed north, try the accommodations at Narai-juku; there are 8 places to choose from. And the town if great!

http://naraijuku.com/stay/index.html

There's a local train from 南木曽(Nagiso) at 17:19 that gets to 奈良井 (Narai-juku) at 18:25; it only costs 970 yen. (There's an earlier local train, too, Nagiso 14:44 to Narai 15:55, as well as an express train from Nagiso at 16:00... if you want to spend more money or if you have a rail pass.)

Then, from Narai, you could easily see Matsumoto, Kamikochi, etc.

we stayed at Kisoji. It is more an onsen resort than a ryokan, and I wasnt keen on the viking style dinners, but breakfast is good and it is interesting enough there. I tried walking into town but it is a fair hike with lots of corners and drop offs (I have a heights fear) so I wouldnt recommend it.